Navy Probing Allegations Of Cheating On Nuclear Reactor Certification Defense Daily 02/04/2014The Navy is investigating allegations that sailors at a nuclear reactor training and certification facility in Charleston, S.C. have engaged in cheating on exams, the service's top officer said Tuesday.

The Navy's nuclear reactors power aircraft carriers like the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70). Photo: U.S. NavyThe Navy's nuclear reactors power aircraft carriers like the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70). Photo: U.S. Navy "To say that I am disappointed would be an understatement," Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert told reporters at hastily arranged press conference at the Pentagon.

Those under investigation include individuals who have been previously certified, have operated nuclear reactors and also serve as training instructors at the school, said Adm. John Richardson, the director of the Navy's nuclear propulsion program, said. The testing involved re-qualifying them, he said.

Nuclear reactors power the Navy's fleet of aircraft carriers and submarines.The allegations do not involve nuclear weapons, unlike the scandal currently embroiling the Air Force wherein airmen responsible for nuclear arms are believed to have cheated on qualification exams.

Richardson said a sailor who had been offered an opportunity to cheat instead came forward reported the matter up the chain of command.

Since the issue arose only 24 hours earlier and the investigation is still in the early stages, Richardson would not say how many sailors were involved in cheating, but said it was a small number, possibly more than a dozen. All of the implicated individuals have had their access to the facility revoked pending the outcome of the probe, he said.

If the Navy concludes that the individuals under investigation indeed cheated, they could ultimately face expulsion from the service, Richardson said.

Meanwhile, Navy Flags emphasize that their problems are not like USAF problems

WASHINGTON: It looks like the scum of scandals that’s afflicted the Air Force nuclear program has spread to the Navy — although top admirals took pains today to emphasize how different the two problems are.
In both cases, military personnel cheated on exams to requalify so they could continue to work with nuclear materials. The Air Force has suspended 92 commissioned officers who served in nuclear missile silos at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. The Navy did not give a number of individuals under investigation — “I was made aware of this incident yesterday,” Adm. John Richardson, director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, told reporters this afternoon, “we’re just getting started.” But the Navy’s cheating case involves senior non-commissioned officers serving as instructors at the Navy’s school for nuclear reactor operators in Charleston, South Carolina. Nukes are nasty however you package them, but a nuclear reactor is less dangerous than a nuclear missile, if only because it isn’t designed to explode.
Regardless of how much the two service’s experiences may differ, the fact remains that this provides more evidence of what appear to be serious problems in some elements of America’s nuclear forces. While the Air Force’s failings involved those who would fire nuclear weapons and the Navy involves those who deal with reactors, they both involve personnel with intimate knowledge of and access to nuclear materials.
A source with detailed knowledge of the Navy’s nuclear submarine force noted that all reactor and weapons experts are issued Q clearances, although need-to-know restrictions mean that a reactor expert is unlikely to have the detailed knowledge about a warhead that a weapons officer would.
The Navy scandal probably means Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will feel compelled to widen the search across the nuclear enterprise — both weapons and reactors — for problems and ways to fix them as the review he ordered gathers steam. The Navy scandal comes at a particularly bad time as many in the Pentagon — including, privately, some Air Force officers — were talking of the Navy as a model for Air Force reforms. This will raises doubts about that course of action.
The source with nuclear experience recommended that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel order his nuclear review team to cast their nets wide, given the nuke force’s tradition of “circling the wagons.” As did Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James, the nuclear source pointed to the military’s culture of zero defects as a likely cause of the scandals.
How seriously the Navy is taking this was shown by the presence of the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, next to Adm. Richardson. Greenert is a bubblehead, as nuclear submariners are known. “We will remain vigilant. We will continue to drive home to our people the importance of integrity,” he said. “It is the foundation, at sea, in port, and certainly in this program.”
What’s more, the admirals emphasized, they found out about the problem because a sailor who was asked to participate in the cheating ring reported on it instead. (The details weren’t clear but presumably he or she was offered test answers). That’s another contrast with the Air Force — though the admirals didn’t say it aloud — because that cheating scandal was only discovered by accident during an investigation of drug use at the nuclear silos.
The Air Force’s problems prompted Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to order a two-pronged review of the entire nuclear enterprise, but that review was not what caught the Navy’s cheaters. “This did not come forward as a consequence of that,” Richardson said. “This was a sailor who has been fully trained from the moment he enters boot camp that integrity is a foundation of our Navy’s operations.”
“What motivated the sailor to come forward?” said Richardson. “We have a steady drumbeat in the Navy, and particularly in the Navy nuclear propulsion program, that stresses the importance of integrity.”
“We generally are pretty forceful about holding people accountable,” he added. “Our history is, if you’re caught in an integrity violation you’re removed from the [nuclear] program and, generally, out of the Navy.”
The admirals also emphasized the Navy’s three-layered certification process in which no one test was as crucial for promotion as the ones the Air Force officers felt compelled to cheat on. “Our exam program is different than the one you’ve mentioned for the Air Force,” Richardson said in reply to one reporter. The personnel who operate naval reactors on aircraft carriers and submarines (no other vessel currently has them) must pass a written test, an oral exam, and a hands-on practical exam in which they stand a watch under careful supervision. They also have to do this repeatedly throughout their career. The instructors under investigation would have gone through this three-step evaluation at least three times:

when they were students themselves, qualifying to work on reactors in general;

on their first fleet assignment to an actual sub or ship, to certify their ability to handle that vessel’s particular reactor;

and on their arrival at the school to serve as instructors, to certify them on the school’s two training reactors.

Both those school reactors, by the way, are now shut down until Richardson and Navy investigators are satisfied everything is safe. Expect the Navy to hold commanders responsible. It’s how the service maintains and encourages accountably. Our nuclear expert said there’s been a spike in the number of people who have had clearances stripped since the Navy Yard shootings last year. Given that, expect most of those found to have cheated to lose their clearances and, probably, their careers in the Navy.

__________________Dear 8 lb 6 oz tiny baby Jesus. If I could change anything I would ask that you make the whole deer out of backstrap and make a pig that can lay bacon eggs. Love you. And thanks. -The Doggie Doc

I can't speak for re-quals of the instructor staff at the NPTU's, but I can speak for the fact that those cats are D-O-N-E.

Cheating is an absolute zero tolerance issue. Cheat and you're done. End of discussion. Hell, if you knew of someone cheating and they find out you're done.

I had a 2.45 (everything in Navy Nuclear Power is graded on a 4.0 scale with 2.5 being the lowest passing grade) in Physics going into the final. The night before the final I said "you know what? fuck this, I've gotta learn this shit tonight". So I did.

Made a 3.96 on the final the next morning and got sent to see the Man for cheating that afternoon when our exams were returned. Grabbed a piece of chalk, turned around, filled up a chalk board with the shit I learned the night before, tossed the chalk back in the trough and strolled out a vindicated Tater with a "take that shit" smug ass smirk on my face.